Remember
by SSA Ariadne Felicity Grey
Summary: On a bus back to Beika with Inspector Megure, Officer Sato and Officer Takagi, Kudou Shinichi begins to question why does she do what she does again. And remembers what she's fighting for. "Life is beautiful, Shinichi. That's the reason it's worth living. Worth protecting. Worth fighting for." Kuroba Kaito X Fem! Kudou Shinichi


**Author's Ramble: I found and bought the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _Sherlock Holmes_.**

 **Disclaimer: I. Own.** _ **NOTHING**_ **.  
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* * *

Another day, another murder.

Death by cyanide. Slathered on the inside of a straw. Romantic rivalry.

Ho-hum. Yeah-huh. Seen it, heard it. Been there, done that. Same. Old.

Sometimes she wondered if it was morally wrong to feel so little during as great a tragedy as death.

Or maybe that it was even more wrong that anyone would be exposed to death so much, so often, that it ceased to be a calamity rather than a fact of life, unworthy of all the attention and drama it usually garners.

An inevitability of existence.

Or maybe she was just screwy.

Kudou Shinichi stared listlessly, lifelessly at the cold, clammy cadaver of Akiyama Yumi being carted off in the park across the street in the back of a morgue van through the grimy bus window.

Akiyama Yumi, the "other" woman in the case, murdered by her fraternal twin sister, Akiyama Amy, over the affections of their mutual childhood friend, Kami Kaze.

She watched the red-haired Amy escorted into a police car, Kaze hunched over on a bench, his face hidden in his palms, police officers and forensics technicians clearing out and packing up; people bit by bit boarded the bus as well.

The world still turned.

It should've been sad, at the very least. If it wasn't so cliché, so overdone.

There were a million cases just like it. Multitudes of men fought over by hordes of women since time immortal; passion was the greatest motivator for any atrocity. Friendships and blood meaning nothing in the name of love(?).

To Shinichi, _that_ was sadder than anything else.

"Kudou _-chan_? Are you all right?"

She whipped her head from the window to face Sato _-keiji_.

After the case was cracked, the mystery solved, the killer caught and the victim avenged, Sato _-keiji,_ Takagi _-keiji_ and Megure _-keibu_ offered their young consultant a ride home for her trouble. After all, midterm exams were tomorrow yet they just _had_ to drag her off the street on her way home from the bookstore, instead of allowing her to go on her merry way making up for two missed years of high school going after a sinister secret syndicate, just to prove that the sister did in fact and without a doubt killed her twin. (The only reason she was still on the graduating this year is because she already was eligible for skipping about five grade levels.)

And their police car just _had_ to choke on them.

And it just _had_ to start _raining_.

Not that beatific, cinematic, romantic loving _-_ couple rain, but a catastrophic, disastrous, I-will-flood-the-entire-world-within-24-hours rain.

Yep.

So they went across the street, to the bus stop, and got on.

And the soft rumble and gentle vibrations beneath her signaled their departure.

"Kudou- _chan_?"

"I'm fine, Sato _-keiji_."

She _soooooooo_ wasn't.

Turning back to the window, leaving the elder officer and her other two companions to their worries and doubts, she stared back at a world that was looking more and more like it was melting away.

There were worse cases than this one. _Much_ worse.

There was always the Black Organization Case.

Yet was particularly draining about this one _was_ the unoriginality.

The triteness.

The repetition.

The endless, everlasting _repetition_.

And that no one, not Akiyama Amy, and not the murderer that will come after her, seemed to notice or ever understand the pointless, meaningless futility of it all.

Of killing.

Of murder.

Of death.

That was frustrating and tiring. That it was never going to end. And that there was no point or purpose to it in the first place.

The very illogicality, irrationality of it all that no one seemed to know about.

She sighed at the gray, dull world. Suddenly both so boring yet so horrifying.

* * *

The high school detective may be with them in body was as far as the Alps in spirit.

"Is she going to be all right?" Takagi questioned, black eyes trained on the teenager looking intently through the window with a blank, worrisome expression.

"Shinichi _-chan_ has been through worse than this. She's been around corpses and murders since she was four." The round inspector faced the unknowing girl to his far left.

"Not to mention her last big case…" He almost whispered.

He would never admit it, yet there were times when he looked at Shinichi and still saw that little four-year old baby girl.

During her first case on that airplane to New York.

During her two-year disappearance.

When she came back just months before, after coming face-to-face with the organization who dressed like crows.

That little girl. Splattered in blood without even flinching.

The daughter he never had and always wanted if Fate had allowed him and his Midori so.

The discreet whisper was for naught; the girl wasn't listening.

They must've been a sight to behold. Three obviously seasoned police officers bewildered and troubled by a highschooler.

The young man with the violet eyes was more intrigued by the highschooler herself.

So engrossed were the three authorities of the law that they failed to see their own personal spectator approach them from the front of the bus, towards the back.

"Is everything all right?" His voice, smooth and suave, the voice of a performer at home at the stage, redirected the officers' attention from their young charge to him.

The boy couldn't have been older than Shinichi herself. Bright-eyed and fresh-faced, the boy was cheer in a uniform.

Slinging his book bag over his shoulder with both hands behind his head of messy hair, he grinned at them, with an improbably perfect balance unattainable when standing upright in the middle of a moving bus.

"Oh, everything is fine here, young man. Thank you." Sato smiled reassuringly.

The boy's grin lopsided just a bit. "Oh? She doesn't look like she's 'fine'."

Plopping into the empty seat directly in front of the distracted detective, the indigo-eyed boy turned with his knees on the seat, chin resting on his arms which were folded atop the headrest, head tilted at a slight angle giving off an air of innocence and interest.

He stayed that way for a while as the bus bumped and stalked away, purple eyes on the mentally distant detective.

Who was this strange boy?

" _Ne_ , _ne Meitantei-chan_ …" He whispered.

"What's the matter?"

Silence.

"It's pointless."

The smile turned into the pout.

" _Ne_ , _Meitantei-chan_ , don't be like that. Whatever it is that's troubling you is important to me."

"That's the problem. The pointlessness of it all."

The silent sleuth continued to look out the window with the same blankness, whilst the strange boy continued to look at her in all earnest.

"The pointlessness of what?"

She sighed at some far away sight they could not see.

"This. My job. My cases. It's all worthless."

Silence.

"You're wrong."

Smoldering sapphire gas flames seared igniting indigo irises that incinerated back in a clash of fire, sudden, intense and all-consuming in the midst of the external downpour.

"You're wrong." He insisted.

"There is no point." She resisted.

The stubborn stalemate was familiar to them both, a battle of will often played out in the light of the moon then in the downpour of rain.

Unexpectedly, his purple eyes softened, as if he was giving in to her, making way.

Commiserating with her.

Understanding her.

"You may feel like you bring death everywhere you go," His eyes fond. "You may feel as though others don't care about what you deem so important."

"And you may be right. There are people who don't care about the sanctity of life, the only thing of importance to them is the furthering of their own interests."

"You think it's meaningless, what you do. Because it's never going to stop. And nobody cares that it'll never stop. And nobody cares that it _doesn't_ _have to be that way_."

He moved in closer to her.

"But if _you_ give in, only _then_ will it be worthless."

"Because _you_ 'd be one of them, then. The ones who don't care. The ones who won't do anything. The ones who _won't stop it_."

"You may feel as though you are an agent of Death, my darling detective. You'd be wrong."

" _Because you fight for the right for others to live._ By going after those who believe there are people who don't deserve to."

At the twist of a wrist, a red rose appeared in his palm.

"And _that_ makes you an instrument of Life."

She never noticed when she moved from her perch from the window, or how the flower ended in her own hand.

" _Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers._ " He spoke in fluent, flawless English.

"It's a moss-green rose." He smiled at her.

" _The Naval Treaty_ from _The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes_." She smiled back, when just a few minutes ago she felt she was never going to smile a genuine smile again.

The same gentle palm that had tried to assuage her with flowers, reached up to pull the thin cord signaling that he had come to his stop.

Hopping down, he skipped to the doors.

As the bus skidded to halt, the boy held on to a seat and turned back to the blue-eyed brunette investigator.

"Life is beautiful, Shinichi. That's the reason it's worth living. Worth protecting. Worth fighting for."

And then he was gone, violet eyes, kind smiles and all.

"You might be right, Kaitou." Blue eyes on the red rose, her three seniors forgotten, the only thing on her mind was the dark green sign with the bold white words written:

 **EKODA**

* * *

 ** _OMAKE_**

"That was some case, _Keibu-dono_." Takagi remarked as his superior and two co-workers boarded.

The department really needed better maintenance for their state-issued vehicles.

"The Blinding Lightning Case truly deserves a celebration." Sato agreed as the four officers of the law took their seats somewhere in the middle of the near-empty bus.

"Especially since it was solved _without_ the help of those nine-year old investigators." Shiratori joined in, quite proud they had managed to solve a case without the rising middle-school crimefighters, the Detective Boys.

"Though you can't doubt they have skill. Even without Christie _-chan_ around anymore." Sato reminisced fondly at the mention of the young detective who had gone back to America about a year ago.

"And without any help from senior high school detectives either." Megure _-keibu_ redirected the conversation back to their solo victory, yet the nostalgia and affection for the little Holmes was unmistakable.

Christie _-chan_ reminded him of Shinichi- _chan_ half the time.

"Yesiree-" The inspector stopped mid-boast when his eyes caught sight of familiar messy brown bangs.

And an even more familiar cowlick.

"Is that...?"

Kudou Shinichi, his goddaughter, was seated at the very back of the public bus, next to the window...

... about to doze off, her head about to hit against the grimy glass window...

... only to be caught by a boy, who leaned her against himself, resting her head on his shoulder.

Not just any boy. The very same mysterious teenager from the Akayama Case.

"That's Kudou _-chan_ , right?" Shiratori confirmed that the inspector wasn't just seeing things.

They watched as the violet-eyed boy gingerly took off his uniform's jacket, placing it gently over the sleeping detective's shoulders.

"Takagi...?"

"Yes, _Keibu-dono_?"

"We just left Ekoda, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

" _Souka_."

* * *

 **Author's Ramble: The last scene basically means the mysterious teenager *cough*Kaito*cough* missed his stop for Shinichi.**

 **Also, Shinchi calling Kaito, Kaito _u_ , is her calling him "Phantom Thief", not his name. To those who are unaware, Kaito and Kaitou, thought sounding the same and only one letter away from each other in spelling, is spelled in wholly different ways in _kanji_ , and means different things.**

 **Kaito- " _to fly above the sea"_**

 **Kaito _u- "Phantom Thief"_**


End file.
